Good carb - bad carb?

With so much debate, confusion, and controversy in recent years about "carbs", I wanted to give you my take on good carbs vs bad carbs, low carb, and all the other "carb confusion" out there. First of all, although I'm not a "low carb" extremist, I do believe that one of the main reasons so many people struggle to ever lose any body fat is that they are over consuming processed carbohydrates such as:

It is extremely hard to lose body fat if you're over consuming any of these types of carbohydrates (even if you workout very hard). In addition to causing wild blood sugar swings and insulin surges which can promote body fat deposition, eating too many carbs also increases your appetite and cravings.

Even carbohydrate sources that most people think are "healthy" really are just excess calories that don't really deliver a lot of nutrient density... and many types of breads and cereals pretend to be "whole grain" with clever marketing while in reality the first ingredient in them is refined flour, which is just going to shoot your blood sugar through the roof.

My take on it is that the majority of people struggling to lose body fat would do much better following these types of carb guidelines:

1. Reduce your grain-based carb products in your diet (cereal, pasta, rice, crackers, etc) and focus more of your diet on healthy grass-fed and/or free-range meats and eggs, grass-fed dairy, and TONS of vegetables and fruits. I understand that it's very hard for most people to give up entirely their breads, cereals, and pastas. But don't worry, just save the grain-based carbs for a 1-day per week "cheat day", and you can still do just fine!

2. Instead of the grains for most of the carbs, try getting most of your carbs from vegetables, especially sweet potatoes, and a variety of whole fruits and berries (NOT fruit juices, which remove the beneficial fibre as well as other essential parts of the fruit).

3. To replace the void if you're used to consuming lots of bread, pasta, cereals, and other carb sources... try filling that void with more healthy fats such as nuts, seeds, avocados, as well as healthy proteins such as grass-fed dairy and meats, whole free-range organic eggs, etc. Healthy fats and proteins go a long way to satisfying your appetite, controlling proper hormone and blood sugar levels, and helping you to make real progress with your fat loss.

So next time you go to load up on the carbs, have a think about the type of carbohydrate you choose and the effect it may have on what you’re trying to achieve.